Review of Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) by Todd J — 19 Nov 2008

Takashi Miike's "remake" of Corbucci's classic is sadly not nearly as cool as you'd expect. There's an awfully bad prologue with Quentin Tarantino as a tale-spinner that's embarrassingly bad.

Then there's the innumerable flashbacks that do little other than stretch the running time and distract from the central narrative. But for everything the film gets wrong, it gets a lot right. First and foremost, the transition from America to Asia makes for some wonderful cross-cultural feedback.

The film is entirely in (heavily-accented) English, and old West motifs like the town split between gangs takes on samurai motifs (which seems appropriate, considering the source material for Fistful).

Yet Miike also manages to reference dozens of Westerns from the Dollars films to McCabe and Mrs. Miller. It's not as wild as you'd hope, but it's very entertaining and very much a Western.

That Miike makes one gorgeous film doesn't hurt either. **** out've *****.